Unintended fires are a concern in vehicles that carry cargo as fires may originate within the cargo. For example, batteries within cargo containers have been known to overheat, causing fires within the cargo bay of a vehicle. Known fire detection systems in vehicles include smoke detectors spread about the cargo bay, passenger cabin, and other fire-sensitive areas. But, the use of smoke detectors as a fire detection system within a vehicle has several disadvantages. For example, the smoke detectors may have a long detection time, representing the amount of time elapsed from the start of the fire to the time of detection. Transported cargo is typically held in covered containers. If a fire starts in one of the containers, the smoke may be trapped within the container, resulting in delayed detection of the fire. The smoke detectors can only detect the fire after the fire and smoke have penetrated the container. As a result of the delayed detection of the fire, the fire may grow larger and cause more damage than if the fire was detected earlier and the vehicle crew was notified.
Another disadvantage of the known smoke detector systems is the limited amount of information that is provided to the vehicle crew. Most known smoke detector systems only provide an alert that smoke is detected, and do not provide additional details about the fire, such as where the fire was detected within the cargo bay, the identity of the cargo container or containers on fire, the size of the fire, the temperature of the area around the fire, or the like. For example, a fire in a cargo container may be a small, submerged fire that is smoldering, or the fire may be a large fire that is emitting a substantial amount of heat and spreading. Since the crew is only provided with limited information that a fire is detected, the crew may take a remedial action that the crew would not have taken in the circumstances if more information had been available to the crew.